Appeal for Afghanistan

Yesterday saw the publication of an appeal from a number of influential writers, authors, journalists, former diplomats, politicians and activists for a renewed dialogue on Afghanistan. The viewpoint takes on the German federal goverment to assume its responsabilities with regard to an open and critical debate on the lessons learned since the intervention into Afghanistan started in 2001 and with regard to the involvements and risks of the (partly) withdrawal of foreign troops in 2014. Afghan ownership in the different sectors still being more wishful thinking than a political reality, the appeal emphasizes the need for a culture of debate in dignity and mutual respect as well as for new diplomatic initiatives on bilaterial and multi-lateral levels. Attached is the German version, the English is to follow. _______________________________________________ Appell für Afghanistan - Für einen erneuerten Dialog mit der deutschen Politik // Zwölf Jahre nach der US/internationalen Intervention in Afghanistan hat sich ein gerüttelt Maß an Sprachlosigkeit breit gemacht zwischen den Intervenierenden und den Einheimischen, aber auch vielen Afghanen in der deutschen Gesellschaft. Eine kritische Debatte über die Deutung der Intervention, ihre Folgen, Perspektiven und die entwicklungspolitische Mitverantwortung für eine friedliche Zivilgesellschaft findet regelmäßig weder im deutschen Feuilleton statt noch scheint sie politisch wie medial erwünscht. Ausdruck davon sind u.a. Fernseh-Talkshows, die immer wieder über Afghanistan aber selten mit Afghanen reden und dabei das Thema der deutschen Mitverantwortung weitgehend ausblenden. Zugleich betonen Militärs wie Politiker selbstkritisch, dass es angesichts einer nach wie vor fehlenden greifbaren Strategie mehr denn je eines kulturell sensiblen Dialoges bedarf, um Verletzungen, Missverständnisse und diskursive Gräben der letzten Jahre zu überwinden. So erwarten viele Menschen in Kundus nach wie vor ein menschliches Zeichen der Entschuldigung Deutschlands an die Hinterbliebenen des Luftangriffs vom September 2009. Leider ist diese Chance bei jüngsten Besuch der Kanzlerin in Afghanistan ungenutzt geblieben. Wie verhält sich etwa, so könnte man fragen, angesichts der damaligen afghanischen Opfer, das selektive Mitgefühl, der Bundesregierung mit dem – alle Menschen umfassenden – Begriff der Würde, wie ihn das deutsche Grundgesetzes formuliert? Kundus verweist wie kaum ein Ort der deutschen Afghanistan-Politik darauf, dass auch und gerade der Westen und Deutschland eine Mitverantwortung tragen für die stetig wachsenden Sorgen, die große Teile der afghanischen Bevölkerung aktuell hegen. So besteht nicht nur Angst vor einer neuen Teilhabe der Taliban an der Macht, sondern auch gegenüber „warlords“ und mutmaßlichen Verantwortlichen früherer Kriege und Kämpfe, mit denen der Westen seit Jahren Zweck-Bündnisse eingeht. Konkret besteht die Befürchtung, dass diese Kräfte nach dem (Teil-)Abzug des ausländischen Militär weiter ungestraft agieren können. Die Folge könnte eine Welle der Abwanderung vieler Afghanen aus ihrer Heimat sein. Dieser Debatte, die auf Versäumnisse in puncto Wiederaufbau Sicherheit und Vertrauensbildung hinweist, müssen sich die Verantwortlichen endlich auch in Deutschland stellen. Die jetzt offiziell verkündete 'Übergabe in Verantwortung' bzw. 'Afghanisierung' oder 'Afghan ownership' kaschiert dabei nur die mangelnde Bereitschaft sich öffentlich mit den Defiziten der letzten Jahre kritisch zu befassen, sondern auch das Fehlen ziviler Entwicklungsperspektiven. So gibt es etwa, entgegen vielfacher Beteuerungen, reale Zweifel, über Schlagkraft und Überlebensfähigkeit der afghanischen Streitkräfte. Dass diese nur so gut und effektiv sein können, wie Ausbildung und Aufbau, auf die man sich eingelassen hat, darf nicht unerwähnt bleiben. Hier wie anderswo dienen geschönte Soll-Zahlen außerdem dazu, erhebliche Mängel in der Entwicklung zu kaschieren, und mit dem eigenen Truppenabzug das „Gesicht“ öffentlich zu wahren. Weitgehend widerspruchslos übernommen wird in den Medien immer wieder gerne das Bild des ausländischen Militärs, dass Entwicklungshilfe vor Ort erst möglich mache. Unerwähnt bleibt dagegen, dass in der Praxis die meisten deutschen Hilfsorganisationen den Kontakt mit dem Militär vor Ort meiden, um sich und ihre afghanischen Mitarbeiter nicht zu kompromittieren. Nur indem man sich der Debatte über solche Folgewirkungen wie auch über die unzähligen, namenlosen zivilen Opfer in dem Krieg stellt, zumal aus Sicht der Einheimischen, wird verständlich, wo Afghanistan aktuell steht. Last but not least gehört dazu ein öffentlicher Diskurs über die strategischen Interessen nach 2014. Dass der (Teil-)Abzug das Ende des neu-aufgelegten 'Great Game' der Super- wie Regionalmächte über Afghanistan einleiten wird, ist wünschbar aber realpolitisch nicht/kaum zu erwarten. Umso wichtiger erscheint es, dass alle Beteiligten Schritte zur multilateralen Vertrauensbildung einleiten statt auf eine Zukunft mit Drohnenkriegen zu setzen. ___________________ Unterzeichner/innen // Ulrich Tilgner, Korrespondent und Autor // Roger Willemsen, Publizist // Dr. Navid Kermani, Schriftsteller und Orientalist // Dr. Gunter Mulack, Botschafter a.D., Direktor des Deutschen Orient-Instituts // Winfried Nachtwei, MdB a.D., Beirat Zivile Krisenprävention beim AA, Vorstandsmitglied Deutsche Gesellschaft für die Vereinten Nationen // Marc Thörner, freier Journalist, Autor „Afghanistan Code“ // Nadia Nashir Karim, Journalistin und Afghanistan-Expertin // Belal El-Mogaddedi, Freier Autor und Initiator der Villigster Afghanistan-Tagung // Dr. Ernst-Albrecht von Renesse, Rechtsanwalt und Mitinitiator der Villigster Afghanistan-Tagung // Martin Gerner, Autor und freier Korrespondent

Academy: The Hindukush of the Others

My lecturing on Afghanistan started at Bamberg University/Bavaria, Germany earlier last month, with a seminar on Afghan Cultural Identity reflected through Film, Media and Art and aligning a century of modern Afghan history, picking up the debate on the early Afghan constitutionalist movement and reaching out to the perspectives of a country highly in state of emotional alert at the approach of 2014. Bachelor and Master students in the seminar come from the fields of Oriental Studies and Communication studies. The group work is unique in the sense that I do organise regular skype interventions inbetween others with experts, scientifics and critically thinking youth from Afghanistan in the meetings in order to overcome the usual debate "about" Afghanistan and in which often enough Afghans are not part of, and replacing it by an approach that makes Afghan voices, spectra of argumentation, thinking and identity visible. The seminar is to be repeated in the coming semester at the Free University of Berlin very probably and open to demands from further institutions.

State of the Afghan media

The Doha Center for Media Freedom has looked at the persisting difficulties Afghan media face as the western partly withdrawal of troops approaches. I am putting an extended version here of what they have taken over here. -------- WHAT are the core problems faced by independent media in Afghanistan? Security remains a problem, especially for journalists out of the urban centers, where attacks are numerous especially in the south and south east. Lacking transportation and protection, local correspondents often depend on governmental authorities to drive them out to remote locations for fact checking. Local media regularly face with intimidation by government authorities as well as by regional strongmen or Taliban. Gender remains an obstacle. In the provinces, sometimes there are no female reporters to go and tape a story with females. The further away from the urban centers, the less training opportunities there are for journalists. Most of the money on media is spent in Kabul while the need for independent reporting is particularly huge in remote areas. Kabul allows for women to make their own reporting, but harrassement in this as in other circumstances happens daily and with a growing tendency, as women report who fear a return of the Taliban. Afghan journalists not only complain about intimidation by Taliban but also from governmental side. There have been numerous attempts to censor reporting and in depth research on Taliban and insurgent attacks that address critical questions to state insitutions. As of today, journalist associations still fight for the adoption of a law for the free access to information, allowing them to investigate without fear of being accused of treason or acting against national interests. All theses reasons in a way logically contribute to self censorship, a phenomenon regularly occuring in Afghanistan. National or regional power brokers, more generally called warlords, very much fear the impact of critical media and reporting. In return and with growing impact from 2006 onwards, a number of them have responded by mounting their own media, easily influencing an audience very much oriented to consumer orientated entertainment with serials or game shows. In the absence of real journalistic unions, the existing organisations do not make enough of an impact and tend to work along ethincal lines. The lack of an independent judicary very much impacts on an impression of permanent pressure and threat. Despite these problems, it is fair to call the development of media in Afghanistan a success story over all since 2001. This goes by the sole number of media outlets available. Satellite dishes have become common also beyond Kabul and tv and radio programmes still grow in number, while some editors-in-chief already fear serious repercussions for 2014 with foreign donor money rapidly decreasing. The success story of media is a relative one at the same time. The independent media – still largely dependent on foreign aid – have a difficult stand in the ever more intense battle for the Afghan audience. For instance the first independent national news agency that came into existence after 2001 had to suffer serious cut backs last year and lay off a considerable number of staff, before finding a new financial achnor only recently. Still the agency is unable to live on own revenues. One reason for this is that a major portion of the advertising market now goes to TV and radio stations. With an ever growing number of Afghan households turning to entertaining serials this is where the money lies.  -------- WHAT pressures are they under from pro-government actors and armed groups? Both, pro-government actors and armed groups, fear any revelation of irregularities. This could be an issue of corruption or the use of illegal force in most cases, also human rights abuses as seen on both sides. Recently, a number of independent Afghan media is trying to stand togehter as a free consortium, publishing investigative stories at the same time on the same day, thus creating a public reality and awarness that would protect them from a blame game by the authorities or regional strongmen, making it more difficult to pick on them or intimidate media. It remains to see if this model can make its way, so far also depending on foreign aid money. -----WHAT is the correlation between the number of media outlets and the freedom of the press? The amount of Afghan TV stations growing at a dizzying speed does not automatically stand for a rise in journalistic quality nor is it necessarily a sign of a more vivid civil society, since the tv market does not follow the logic of public independent media. Different stations work with international financial support - ranking from the international military, that succeeds in keeping this an issue not much discussed, to Iran, who exerces a offensive policy towards Afghan journalists at intervals. For some businessmen at a national or local level, owning a media, tv or radio, is an important factor of prestige and power in a society that consumes more and more programmes daily. Top ranking stations like Tolo, Ariana or TV1 look pretty modern and catchy in their presentation, mixing classical international formats, with current news, regular debates that only occasionally get really into being disputed and game shows. Lack of an advertising market in the print sector and the Western military withdrawal will accelerate the economical crisis also in the media sector. We are likely to see a number of printed outlets disappear. Afghan media observers predict that a number of the newly created tv stations might soon disappear, not being able to rival in quality also in the absence of income sources. On the other hand, simple radio phone-in shows allow women to participate in the public sphere. These phone-in programmes can also be seen as a way to signal what is going wrong in the social neighborhood and thus contribute to public awareness on a local scale. As for the so called warlord media, Afghan media seem largely to be left alone with them, the inernational community having turned their eyes away from the media sector. Still Afghan journalists suffer, get kidnapped or die in the exercise of their profession.

Ghazni: what to celebrate?

The city of Ghazni, a two hour car drive south of Kabul, is the capital of Islamic culture in Asia this year. Official celebrations are announced to be held in mid April, though there is little hope that besides VIP's, officials, diplomats and journalists ordinary visitors or tourists will be able to travel and assist. On the opposite: the organizers want to bring the city to the people outside instead, as recent developments indicate. It is thanks to Mahmud of Ghazni (971 -1030) that the city of Ghazni, some 140 kilometers southwest of Afghanistan's capital Kabul on the road to Kandahar, is being celebrated this year. The most prominent ruler of the Ghaznavid dynasty brought together Islam, the Persian language and the Turkish art of war in an empire that once stretched from today's Iran to India. '"Mahmud of Ghazni turned the city into a thriving capital by inviting artists, writers and scholars from all over Central Asia to the court," Karsten Ley of Aachen University says. He is currently working on the restoration of Ghazni as part of a team of urban development experts led by Michael Jansen that has been in the city since 2010. "This is exactly what we can see as integration of different cultures in the best European sense," he added. „At first, we were shocked at the condition the wall was in," Ley say. The city wall, the citadel and two well-preserved dodecagonal minarets are Ghazni's main historical landmarks. Germany has contributed some 1.7 million euros to their preservation. "The point of the project is not for us Germans to come here and show people how to restore a city wall," Ley explained. "Our role is to help organize the project and help the people of Ghazni preserve their wall." "We've consolidated the foundations of about 1,500 meters so that it cannot cave in anywhere," he said. He was not worried that the 400 builders working around the clock on the project could come to harm. "Suicide bombers tend to seek out bigger gatherings of people and Western forces are not in the city of Ghazni but outside the city walls." However, the lack of security does mean that Afghans from elsewhere cannot access the city. "I can't go to Ghazni right now," Arif, a journalist and collegue says. "The Taliban are threatening everyone who works with the foreign media or foreigners with abduction or death." Therefore, Wahidullah Omaryar, the head of a private radio station in Ghazni, has been communicating with the outside world via Skype. "When Ghazni was nominated as capital of culture, everyone was very happy, including me," he said. "The city's history is being revived and the world won't forget us." But he explained that it had been a long, difficult process and of the 30 planned projects, very few had met the deadline. The Afghan media recently warned that Ghazni could lose its title of capital of Islamic culture before the celebrations had actually begun in earnest. "Some 15 million US dollars were transferred to the Afghan authorities for the anniversary," Waidullah said. "I don't know of any project that has been accomplished with this money. There is still no airport without which no visitor can come!" Ghazni's 140,000 inhabitants were promised better electricity, an Islamic cultural center and 150 kilometers worth of newly-asphalted roads - only 50 of which have reportedly been finished. The hopes that there would be economic exchange have also been dashed. Arif has little hope that there will be many visitors to Ghazni this year. "There will be a few symbolic delegations. The police and army will be here to protect them. And they will leave again after one or two days." However, as long as neither Afghans nor foreigners can come to Ghazni, by plane or by land, curators are suggesting the capital of Islamic culture go to them in the form of photo exhibitions, films and videos. This way, Ghazi's name will be revived two thousand years after Mahmud made this city into a cultural landmark.

German Angst? Withdrawal politics

In diesen Tagen machen sich deutsche Medien Gedanken über die Folgen des Rückzugs vom Hindukusch. Der Abzug der Bundeswehr, lesen wir, erfülle viele afghanische Helfer der Deutschen mit Panik. Anfangs waren vor allem afghanische Angestellte in Diensten des deutschen Militärs damit gemeint. Jetzt entdeckt die Öffentlichkeit, dass auch afghanische Mitarbeiter ziviler Hilfsorganisationen möglicherweise Repressalien ausgesetzt sein könnten. Deshalb sei es, so die Ansicht, Deutschlands moralische Pflicht, jenen Afghanen, die sich mit den Deutschen vor Ort eingelassen haben, zu helfen. Ihnen eine Zukunft ohne Angst und Schrecken zu sichern gehe am Besten, in dem man sie vor möglichen Racheakten der Taliban schütze. Denn die Aufständischen haben jenen, die mit der afghanischen Regierung zusammenarbeiten oder aus Ländern der NATO-Truppensteller kommen, den Krieg erklärt. Im Gespräch ist deshalb immer wieder Hilfe für eine erleichterte Ausreise. In der Tat deutet aktuelle wenig darauf hin, dass die Waffen mit dem Abzug 2014 schweigen (danach werden immer noch Zehntausende internationaler Militärs im Land verbleiben). Und in Ermangelung funktionierender Versöhnungsprogramme und einer Spirale aus Gewalt und Misstrauen, sind Racheakte unter Afghanen nicht auszuschließen. Beispiele gibt es genug. Gleichwohl ist dem Land mit einem massiven Exodus afghanischer Helfer im Dienste der Ausländer nicht gedient. Zehn Jahre besuche ich das Land nun regelmäßig, und treffe dabei regelmäßig auf ganz andere Geschichten, als ich sie in unseren Schlagzeilen finde. Als ich zum Beispiel unlängst in Mazar-i-Sharif afghanische Dokumentarfilmer und Journalisten ausbildete, klangen ihre Erzählungen weniger dramatisch als vermutet. Zurück in Deutschland fiel mir ein Beitrag in einem grossen deutschen Nachrichtenmagazin in die Hände, der von der Angst der Bundeswehr-Helfer sprach. Darin abgedruckt war die Geschichte eines Afghanen, der als Wachmann für die Bundeswehr in Camp Marmal, dem grossen Militärlager im Norden, arbeitet. Ich schickte den Bericht einem vertrauenswürdigen, mir aus vielen Jahren bekannten afghanischen Kollegen in der Stadt. Seine Antwort kam prompt, fast ein wenig ironisch: der Mann in dem Bericht, so meinte er, sei nicht gefährdet. Warum er das so genau sagen könne, vergewisserte ich mich? Weil es sein Nachbar sei, und noch dazu ein guter Verwandter, antwortete er. Bis heute habe ich keinen Grund an seinen Worten zu zweifeln. Tatsächlich findet sich in dem Artikel kein direkter Hinweis, inwiefern der Wachmann von Taliban akut bedroht wäre. In dem Gespräch artikuliert er vielmehr allgemeine Sorgen über Sicherheit und Zukunft. Das wiederum verbindet ihn mit der grossen Zahl seiner Landsleute, die Sorgenfalten bekommen, je näher der Abzugstermin rückt. Was aber ist die beste Lösung? Vor Jahresfrist machten Meldungen die Runde, Deutschland überlege angeblich sämtliche afghanischen Angestellten der Bundeswehr in Sicherheit zu bringen. Hat nicht das US-Militär im Irak ähnliche Programme aufgelegt? Lässt sich so nicht eine in vieler Hinsicht schief gelaufene Intervention noch einmal mit Sinn versehen? Mittlerweile sprechen sich deutschen Ministerien, die den Abzug koordinieren, für notwendige Einzelfallprüfungen aus, in denen „nachweislich“ und auf „konkrete Gefahren“ hin jeder Fall untersucht werden solle. Tatsächlich bin ich geneigt dem beizupflichten. Weniger weil das Militär dies sagt, als aus Gründen, die mit Afghanistan selbst zu tun haben. Denn eine Pauschal-Erleichterung zur Ausreise könnte vor allem einen deutlichen Aderlass für Teile der Zivilgesellschaft im Land bedeuten. Nicht wenige der afghanischen Helfer sind jung und vergleichsweise gut ausgebildet. Gerade jetzt besteht die Chance, dass eine neue Schicht heranwächst, die zumindest einen Teil weit anschließt an ein aktives Bürgertum, das durch die Flucht vor Sowjets, Mujahedeen und Taliban verstreut in der ganzen Welt lebt. Soll man solch einer Entwicklung Vorschub leisten? Die Anzahl der Helfer, die im zivilen Bereich mit und für Deutsche arbeiten, geht ebenfalls in die Hunderte, wenn nicht darüber. Auch sie schweben in einer gewissen Gefahr, wie Gewaltakte gegen internationale Hilfsorganisationen und Mitarbeiter zeigen. Aber wer will hier die Grenze ziehen zwischen festen und freien Mitarbeitern, aktiven und ehemaligen, privilegierten und weniger privilegierten? Und welches Zeichen würde man damit setzen? Es stimmt: mit Fundamentalisten ist nicht zu scherzen. Andererseits hat dies die meisten Afghanen, die ich kenne, nicht davon abgehalten, sich mit ausländischen Projekten und Partnern einzulassen. Was wäre, wenn die erleichterte Ausreise Schule machen würde? Kabul wäre sehr rasch entvölkert. Wer aber tritt dann an die Stelle derer, die Platz machen? Damit kein Zweifel aufkommt: Die Gründe derer, die seit Monaten schon auf gepackten Koffern sitzen, respektiere ich zu Genüge. Interessanterweise spielt bei ihnen die Angst vor der Rückkehr skrupelloser warlords fast ebenso eine Rolle wie die vor den Taliban. Davon liest man nur wenig in unseren Medien. Auch nicht davon, welchen Anteil der Westen daran hat, dass viele dieser warlords gewendet aber nach wie vor fest im Sattel sitzen. Für die Lage in Mazar-i-Sharif gilt: die Verhältnisse sind relativ. Weitaus härter umkämpft sind der Süden und Osten des Landes. Dort hat es in der Vergangenheit Racheakte gegenüber afghanischen Übersetzern und Dolmetschern gegeben, die mit dem US-Militär kooperierten. Die meisten Angestellten der Bundeswehr hätten Derartiges nicht zu befürchten, meint mein Informant. In Kunduz, wo die Jagd nach Taliban in den vergangenen Jahren brutaler verlief, mag es dagegen etwas anders aussehen. Eine wasserdichte Überprüfung, wer von den afghanischen Helfern in welchem Ausmaß bedroht ist und wer – aus anderen Gründen, die ebenso wenig verwerflich sind – mit der Ausreise liebäugelt, wird es in den wenigsten Fällen geben. Zu zeitintensiv dürfte es in der Regel sein, allen Erklärungen bis ins Letzte nachzugehen. Am Ende könnte sogar neues Misstrauen durch zuviel Wunsch nach Kontrolle (durch die Deutschen) stehen. Anders Neuseeland: es soll, so ist zu lesen, afghanischen Angestellten seines Militärs folgenden Deal angeboten haben: Visa für einen Teil der afghanischen Helfer, oder drei Jahresgehälter für andere, um sich selbst in Sicherheit zu bringen. Letzteres dürfte vor allem den wachsenden Sozialneid schüren, der sich als Folge der internationalen Intervention im Land breit gemacht hat. Eine Folge davon: das Geschäft mit Entführungen, das unter Afghanen noch mehr floriert als gegenüber Ausländern. Das ist hierzulande wenig bekannt und hat doch mit uns zu tun. Allgemein lässt sich sagen: Jene, die in elf Jahren wenig vom Kuchen der ausländischen Hilfe profitiert haben, sind bitter geworden, ablehnend manchmal, oft nur noch zweckrational eingestellt. Als Ausländer bekommt man das mit jedem Jahr deutlicher zu spüren. Aber man mag das gar nicht einmal verurteilen. Dass nicht alles hoffnungslos ist, beweisen junge Afghanen, die nach erfolgreichem Studium im Ausland in den letzten Jahren jetzt wieder zurückgekehrt sind nach Afghanistan, um dort so etwas wie einen Marsch durch die Institutionen anzutreten. Einige von ihnen haben sich der Bewegung namens “Afghanistan 1400“ angeschlossen. 1400 ist nach unserem Kalender das Jahr 2022. Ein Markstein, ähnlich wie eine Agenda 2010. Bis dahin wollen die jungen Männer und Frauen die alten Eliten herausfordern, korrupte Strukturen in Frage stellen und wo es geht gesellschaftlichen Einfluss gewinnen. Viele in der 1400-Bewegung hätten es vergleichsweise leicht gehabt, nach dem Studium im Westen zu bleiben. Sie haben es nicht getan und so ein Zeichen gesetzt.

"Not chronically poor"

This interview with Afghan MP and presidential candidate Fawzia Koofi was published today in the German newspaper Der Tagesspiegel and can be found here. It comes a day after the new study of the Crisis Group and its scepticism and the statements by the ICRC, but was recorded shortly before though. Fawzia Koofi is so far the only female candidate for the upcoming Afghan presidential elections in 2014. Born 1976, a married widow with two daughters, she has worked as an English Teacher and Unicef Officer for Child Protection in her home province of Badakhshan, for which she is a member of Parliament since 2005 and women affairs activist. She is critical of the peace process the way the Afghan government understands it and of the timeline of the drawdown of the international forces in Afghanistan. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> -You are the the 19th child in a family of 23 children. Did this teach you how to fight for power? Certainly. If you come from a big family like me you learn how to become a leader. Especially as a girl you have to learn how to be visible and stand up against the elder members in the family. - You will run as a presidential candidate in 2014. Let us dream for a moment: what would you change if you were to win? Why dream? Why not think of it as a reality. My focus basically will be in two areas. One is improving the wealth of the Afghan people. Afghanistan is not a chronically poor country. We have lots of mineral wealth, something that the current government has not been able to use. We basically rely on foreign aid. What we need is a real transition to develop the potential of our minerals, while creating accountability and rule of law at the same time. - This means reducing corruption. How do you want to do this? I think we need to be role models as leaders ourselves in the fight against corruption. The fight has to start from within our own families. In doing so credibly this could affect the public sphere. At the government and top level where we have lots of cases of corruption, nobody has been sentenced up to now. This needs to change. - What do you want to do for women? This is my cause. Women are 55 percent of the Afghan population. They can make a difference in the coming elections. We speak of them as the forgotten half of the population. But let us remember that in 2004 forty-four percent of the women voted for president Karsai. He got his legitimacy largely from women, only to forget them right afterwards again. I think women rights have become a matter of revenge in this war. Taliban try to undermine whatever the international community and the Afghan government consider a success in this field. Recently there have been horrible cases of violence against women. The case of Najiba for instance, a woman who was shot dead in front of a public crowd in an area controlled by Taliban. Part of the people around were cheering as she was killed. This is not part of my identity and culture. - Do you think you can change things as a female politician against society and tradition? Fighting against the wrong aspects of tradition certainly needs a long time. It is not a matter of overnight change. - Many Afghans think that the withdrawal of international forces comes too early. What is the fear? The fear is that in leaving, the Taliban might come back. We see a sympathy for Taliban in parts of the Afghan government also. Some elements have an interest to bring them and other insurgent groups back to power and undermine the electoral process. - Are you afraid that the west might give up Afghans? Yes. That is what it is all about. The western countries have come to Afghanistan to bring security and stability. Now, twelve years later, where is this security ? Withdrawing too early makes the situation worse while the Afghan institutions are not able to become strong and stable. - Will the Afghan army survive the withdrawal? There are problems in this respect. The international community only started to pay attention with view to establishing strong security forces in 2008. But four years are just too short to stand against a phenomenon like international terrorism. Also, the salaries of the Afghan security forces are nearly exclusively paid by the international donor countries. So a withdrawal, also in a financial sense, might seriously affect the stability of the newly built Afghan forces. - Do you see an economical crisis ahead? Yes, very much. Up to now, the flow of international donor money has created a certain amount of jobs. Most of this money actually leaves Afghanistan again through other channels. But now, many people will lose their job. If they have no alternative, they may become criminals or fundamentalists. I have seen some of my friends, young university graduates, who came and asked me for a job. I could not help all of them. Later, some of them had joined the Taliban. - There has been a growing number of so called insider attacks recently, with Afghan security personnel killing their international counterparts. Why is that happening? The policy of screening new recruits in the army and the police is very weak. Sometimes guarantee letters are just issued randomly without any control for anybody who wants to join the forces. It happened more than one time that people would come and see me with a guarantee letter asking me to sign it. They would claim that they are from my constituency. Many of my MP colleges would sign these letters without knowing who these persons actually were and what their affiliation to the Taliban was. And there are other cases where a lack of culture and tradition is involved. Most of these cases stem from arguments between both sides. Because of not respecting each other, or the other's belief. Especially in the Afghan context of relative absence of education, people tend to react more aggressively. On the other hand, a better training for international troops would be good before they come to Afghanistan. They should know more about the cultural sensitivities of Afghans rather than to cross the red lines. - For example? They should be taught how to respect the holy koran for example. Or, directed towards Afghan women, not take pictures without permission. So actually the same things that we demand in any human society. Sometimes foreign troops think that because they come from abroad, Afghans are nobodies to them. If they showed more respect, clashes could be avoided. - We have witnessed an eruption of violence following the recent anti-Mohammed film. Where do you stand in the dispute between freedom of expression and religious sensibility? We are living in a global village. We all have rights and responsibilities. Freedom of expression needs to be dealt with responsibly. Not with the aim to create clashes. The filmmakers in question could have addressed the issue in many other ways than the way he actually chose. I strongly condemn the disrespect of any religion. But I also condemn outbursts of violence that occurred. We just should not give reasons to those who are looking to destroy in reaction. In Afghanistan luckily the negative consequences were lesser than in previous comparable cases.

Too fast too soon - observations on democracy

Here is an essay I wrote for Fikrun wa Fann, the magazine of the Goethe Institue for the cultural and intellectual dialogue with the islamic world, and its special edition 'Mapping Democracy' about the Arabellion and observations on democracy in the context of the islamic world:

A crime scene in Afghanistan. Two worlds that could not be further apart. While the media in Europe and the United States were asking questions about what could have motivated the American soldier who killed sixteen civilians, among them many children, in a single night of violence in Kandahar back in spring of this year, an official Afghan commission back then has established that the crime and its background make it impossible to conclude that it was carried out by a single perpetrator. Since then numerous Afghan media have been spreading versions that make room for the theory of an orchestrated murder by members of the United States armed forces.
Even if the facts seem to contain little that would support this thesis, perhaps there is no better indication of the depth of the mistrust that has established itself between the indigenous population and the foreign military.
Furthermore, the drama of Kandahar transcends the fiction of every script that has been written about the conflict in recent years. While politicians and the NATO leadership are understandably trying to present the crime as an ‘isolated incident’, in truth there are many reasons why it should be seen in the overall context of a war that is characterised by years of brutalisation, sustained disproportionateness, and growing alienation.
When furious Afghans took to the streets after the qur'an burning in Bagram, just a few days later the idea had almost crystallised that an entire people were in danger of being instrumentalised by radical Friday preachers and the Taliban.
This idea ignores the calls for moderation that were in many instances being made by precisely such mullahs in kabul and elsewhere. It would be doing multifaceted Afghan society a disservice simply to reduce it to the cries of ‘Margh ba America’ – ‘Death to America’ – that have been echoing in the media as a result of these most recent events.
There is in fact more than one war being waged in Afghanistan. We are also experiencing the revival of an internal cultural battle with its origins in the last century. The slogans of the increasingly critical public – were they to dare to take to the streets on a regular basis – might just as easily be ‘Down with karzai’ or ‘Fight corruption’.
Certainly, when it comes to defining the position of democracy in the Afghan context, it is not too great a stretch to turn to the example of the upheaval in the Arab world. In Afghanistan too large sections of the population are seeking an outlet for their rage and disappointment: with warlords and nepotism, the arbitrariness of the authorities, and the state-sanctioned robbery of the people.
It is hard these days to find Afghans who do not, in private conversations, vehemently demand that those responsible at all levels of state, whether national, regional or local, be called to account. In the ten years of the international presence in Afghanistan, corruption and state inefficiency have had greater success in consolidating themselves than ‘good governance’, the programmatic title for the many projects that have swallowed millions of dollars in subsidies.
Nonetheless, despite the recent events in Kandahar, the scenario of democratically-inspired street protests is likely to remain a fiction for many years to come. That, at least, is the view of those to whom I have spoken. The younger generation in particular is unequivocal. ‘Taking to the streets and demonstrating for our goals is the last thing we would do under the current circumstances,’ says Abdullah khodadad, one of the founders of Eslah Talaban (‘those who seek reform’), a group of students and university graduates, linked up via Facebook, who have given themselves the
name of the ‘Reformist Movement’. They are demanding university places and further education for the tens of thousands of school leavers who graduate without any career prospects; governmental bodies that answer to the people instead of holding out their hands for bribes; the removal of old leadership elites. At a press conference, the Reformist Movement draped the walls with orange publicity banners. The idea was convey something of the atmosphere of the Ukrainian revolution. It is also the same
orange as the overalls that presented the world with its first image of the prisoners in Guantánamo, in January 2002.
The movement’s website lists around 170 Facebook friends. The number is growing every day, the initiators insist. They have been trying to establish a network with similar initiatives, so far without success. Social media in Afghanistan are indeed becoming daily more popular at a low level. There is, however, a lack of authorities or charismatic figures who could focus the protest. There is also the question of how independent such movements really are.
‘Groups like Eslah Talaban still have the same connections with the political circles of the Northern Alliance,’ comments Gran Heward, a young Afghan who works as a researcher on the subject for AAN, an independent international think-tank in kabul. ‘The former head of the Afghan secret services, for example – Saleh – got a lot of media coverage after he won the support of another section of the Afghan youth for his so-called “green movement”.’
So is it all just an illusion? ‘how are the youth here supposed to stage successful spontaneous protests and bring about the downfall of the existing structures when the “big brother” United States and the europeans can’t manage to curb the evil that is rampant in the country?’ asks Shafiq, a journalist and colleague who has worked for many years for the Afghan Service of the BBC. ‘but even if the young people were able to bring about the fall of the karzai government, there would be another monster lying in wait for them: the new old Taliban.’
Certainly anyone who takes to the streets to demand their rights in Afghanistan must expect to come into conflict not with the forces of the state but with several of the armed political factions. This has a deterrent effect on young people. ‘Unlike in Egypt, where it was possible to identify a comparatively clear opponent in the form of the president and the apparatus of state, here we are dealing with threats from many different sides,’ says Shafiq, in an attempt to explain the situation in Afghanistan. So the overwhelming feeling among the younger generation is that they are condemned to a sort of dubious trek through Afghan state institutions until they arrive at an influential position. If, that is, they see their future as being in Afghanistan at all.
This is certainly a gloomy perspective. Not least because we have now reached a point where the Afghan government is quite shameless about eroding aspects of the newly-created institutions from the inside. The international players are often hesitant in registering any kind of protest. Thus at the beginning of the year president karzai did not extend the mandates of three leading representatives of the independent Afghan Human Rights Commission, which in effect was the same as firing them. The main reason for this was a classified study that lists the names and alleged crimes of leading warriors such as former warlords, including some who currently hold office in the karzai government. They are pressurising the president not to publish its conclusions. To date, Western governments have barely commented on the incident, which says a lot about the political rules of the game in Afghanistan. Yet it is common knowledge that since the end of 2001 the donor countries, above all the United States, have been cooperating in the fight against the taliban with the same warlords now targeted in the controversial study.
Against this backdrop the inaction and the perceived fear of the young generation is understandable; it might even be seen as realpolitik. Looking beyond youth protests, many people in Afghanistan consider their own government and the ruling class of nouveaux riches to lack political legitimacy. Two massively rigged elections and the enrichment of an elite that has no scruples about using money and bribes to buy power and political office are among the reasons why the term ‘democracy’ has clearly suffered since 2001 in the eyes of ordinary people as well as intel- lectuals and those who believe in progress.
Another issue is the rapid speed with which tens of thousands of international advisers, civilian experts and military personnel spread out across the land. Overnight, Afghanistan became one big re-education camp. This was too great a strain, both socially and culturally, as Naser observes. ‘Too fast, your democracy,’ comments the thirty-five-year-old development aid worker from Herat. ‘Large parts of our society were not prepared for it.’
Shafiq, the man who has been with the bbC for years, finds that the relative media freedom in the country is, nonetheless, the fulfilment of his personal dream. But he too sees Afghan culture as an area in which the limitations of the conflict of the last few years have become apparent: ‘The cans of beer that you used to get in kabul in the first few years for three US dollars; the Asian brothels that
appeared on the scene and which were followed by prostitu- tion on the Afghan side; the invasion of the Indian enter- tainment industry’ – all this, he says, has compromised the name of democracy.
Shafiq won one of the coveted scholarships to study in the United States, and anti-modernisers are his bêtes noires; yet his words sound like the kind of thing an anti-moderniser would say. However, the hubris of the West seems to have created a double reflection. Some people it has inflamed against it, whilst at the same time strengthening the scepticism of others who are in principle well-disposed towards it.
Now, against the backdrop of the noble motto for 2014, ‘Transfer of Responsibility’, politicians have started stating that the goal of establishing a democracy in Afghanistan is unattainable. How then, one would like to ask, should the poorly coordinated attempts of the past ten years be categorised? And why did these efforts seem to lack direction from the start? The Afghans, at any rate, deserve better than ‘democracy light’.
For a moment Shafiq grows melancholy at the thought of it all, as if it were possible to turn back the hands of time. ‘9/11 was wrong, the US intervention was wrong, and the premature peace talks that are taking place now are wrong too.’ During our conversation two words stand out: ‘monsters’ and ‘beasts’. Both, he groans, are constantly plaguing Afghanistan. ‘There has to be modernisation, whether it comes from the Moon, from Mars, from Germany, from Europe or from somewhere else. But it has to proceed more cautiously and with less haste.’
Anyone who wants to understand why democracy is not a surefire success in Afghanistan, as some people assumed at the beginning of 2002 that it would be, and why the Taliban has been enjoying relative popularity since 2005, will find an explanation in the failure of the Afghan state and its representatives. ‘They do whatever they want. They loot and steal from us, and they think only of themselves,’ says a tribal leader from paktia province, talking about state officials and travellers from the capital. ‘They wear jeans and drink alcohol “in the name of democracy”. But our culture and traditions
do not allow this.’ This sort of criticism is not just an ex- pression of the city - countryside divide, which according to my observations is widening with all the billions that are being poured into Afghanistan. Scientific studies are now also questioning the fundamental assumptions of Western development aid with regard to sustainability and democracy.
A recent US study asks whether well-intentioned aid projects can in fact trigger a mobilisation against the Afghan government. The study concludes that they can. The reasons it gives are as follows: lack of fair distribution of goods, insufficient information about the actual needs of the people in the project location; attempts to manipulate foreign aid organisations, as well as the prejudices of the international agents themselves towards the country and its people.
All this in turn influences the democratic process. Furthermore, aid projects exacerbate the political situation in places where insurgents have secured themselves a share in them. Numerous media reports in recent years suggest that in areas where the Taliban or insurgents lay claim to power, they are siphoning off taxes and duties amounting to between 20% and 40% of the aid budget. Without such secret agreements, aid or supplies for NATO facilities would often simply not get through.
We can tell from the public use of the words that the process – the rather coy term favoured by researchers and diplomats – is on the defensive. For a long time now Afghan aid workers have refrained from naïvely using terms like civil society or democracy when going about their work. They are afraid that doing so could invite trouble. Some of the aid workers define ‘civil society’ as an imported Western concept.
Until now, Naser’s aid organisation in Herat has been led by a German. In two years’ time, he might well be be replaced by an Afghan. Naser points out an ongoing fundamental difficulty that they encounter in their daily work. ‘When we do vocational training outside the city it is frequently the case that the tribal elders react with mistrust. Or they refer to the clergy. Many of the mullahs continue to propagate the kind of thinking that says the devil enters the room when an Afghan woman and a strange man come together to work in the same room.’
In mentioning this he is highlighting the influence of the Afghan clergy. For anyone who wishes to understand the social context that goes with the process of democratisation, this is key. The upgrading of the status of the Afghan clergy over the past thirty years could indeed be one of the ‘beasts’ referred to earlier.
‘Along with the political leaders, they are our real problem. Sometimes the political leaders and the clergy are even one and the same,’ says Enayat, a journalist from Mazar-e-Sharif who works for both national and international media. ‘Those who are part of the ulama treat Islam as their own property, as if they had unlimited authority to determine matters. The lower the level of education of the people, the more the clergy take this for granted.’
On the one hand, Mazar, where Enayat is from, is said to have a liberal atmosphere. On the other, it was here that the case of the journalist perwiz kambakhsh, who was sentenced to death for alleged blasphemy, originated. The story was covered by media all over the world. The death sentence was later commuted under pressure from abroad. But Enayat is still afraid: ‘When I’m taking part in a public debate and I translate passages from the qur'an into the local language, Dari, and add my own personal comments in certain places, I have to pay close attention. If the debate gets heated, I could be risking my neck,’ he says bluntly.
The atmosphere of 1980s and ’90s is still prevalent here. Up to the 1970s the mullahs and talebs were the butt of jokes and had little relevance within society, but in the years that followed their power quickly grew. ‘Islam was a side issue in the 1960s and ’70s in the context of Afghanistan as is was then,’ remembers the translator and philosopher Masoud Rahel. ‘Back then we had no inhibitions about making jokes in public about religion and the clergy; we didn’t have to fear reprisals, or being seen as the enemy. Taleb was what we used to call a mullah’s young assistant back then: a boy who was a kind of acolyte and went from door to door seeking alms.’
then the Soviet occupation brought parties and movements with Islamic leanings into the equation, groups that in their pakistani exile primarily organised religious education on a grand scale. To this day the numerous madrassas in the border region are an expression of this fundamentalisation. Soviet sources at the time estimated the number of clerics in the population – from educated ulama doctors of Islamic law to uneducated village preachers – at around 300,000 – a number that has probably risen further still as a result of the wars. Under the Taliban almost all the important positions in government were held by mullahs: they were the ministers, representatives, governors and vice governors. The judiciary was also in the hands of the clergy.
These structures have not simply been swept away since the US intervention. Nonetheless, the advent of modern mass media, above all television, since 2001 has resulted in many Afghans taking a critical view of the clericalisation of their society. So the country is experiencing, for the third time in just a few decades, an escalating struggle between modernisers and conservatives, the first of whom explicitly want help and influence from abroad; but at the same time, their warnings and advice often go unheeded.
the forthcoming talks between the United States and the Taliban signify the start of a new chapter. It is unclear what place democracy will have in this, or how it will be negotiated, and this is a cause for concern in spite of hopes for a negotiated peace. Women in particular, as well as those living in the cities, are afraid of losing the freedoms they have gained in recent years.